The story of how Sheffield Wednesday could avoid a 15-point deduction in the League The following season has taken a strange new turn because of their former owner.

As the 2025-26 season comes to an end, Sheffield Wednesday fans may be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief. This season has been beyond their worst nightmares, with no wins since September and a point total that is the lowest in EFL history.

The club’s collapse into administration at the end of October marked a low that has proven impossible to recover from, and the process of saving them by passing them on to new owners has been, to say the least, tedious.

A offer led by professional gambler James Bord failed due to questions about the source of the cash used to finance the bid, and with the season nearing its finish, the sale to the new preferred bidders, Arise Capital, has yet to be completed.

The reason for this is due to bids made for the club. Any football team that goes into administration must pay all creditors a minimum dividend of 25p in the pound or suffer a 15-point deduction at the start of the next season.

Sheffield Wednesday’s biggest creditor is soon-to-be former owner Dejphon Chansiri, who loaned the club tens of millions of pounds during his decade in control. However, negotiations with Chansiri have reportedly stalled due to a peculiar assertion made by the former owner.

Chansiri postponing Sheffield Wednesday deal over unexpected accusations about alternative bidder

According to Patreon, writer Alan Nixon has confirmed that talks with Chansiri to reduce the amount of his claim so that Sheffield Wednesday can begin next season without a 15-point deduction are stalled.

Nixon describes an unusual sequence of events in which Chansiri claims that another bidder contacted him directly and offered the 25p in the pound that he was hoping for. No information is provided on who this bidder was, how much they offered, or why they sought to bypass the administration process by approaching Chansiri directly rather than the insolvency practitioners handling the matter, Begbies Traynor.

He also confirms that this matter “is not likely to stop Arise going ahead with their own deal,” but it does increase the likelihood of the club starting next season with that 15-point deduction in place. He also suggests that it may still influence the EFL’s thinking over any points deduction “if they can be convinced that Chansiri has been obstructive and unrealistic.”

Chansiri might still derail Sheffield Wednesday’s fresh start.

If anything, this report demonstrates that Dejphon Chansiri is unfamiliar with the legal process that occurs when a corporation enters administration. Arise Capital’s bid made them the preferred bidders for the club, providing them a period of exclusivity in the process of acquiring new ownership.

Dejphon Chansiri simply cannot field offers from prospective alternative bidders on his own. When the club went into administration, he effectively signed a declaration affirming his agreement to professional insolvency practitioners taking over the club’s day-to-day operations and sale. At this moment, he gave up the right to accept bids from other parties. If someone did place a bid directly with him, he should have referred them to Begbies Traynor.

Furthermore, there is no logical reason why somebody wishing to make a bid of £30 million – the sum required to avoid the points deduction – would approach Chansiri directly rather than Begbies Traynor. Any credible business or individual making such an offer should be believed to either know this or have sought guidance from someone who does.

The typical legal procedure for successfully exiting administration is known as a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), and any CVA proposal must be agreed by at least 75% of creditors (by value) before it can be legally binding. Chansiri would then have the legal authority to reject the CVA request.

Even in the worst-case situation, this is unlikely to help him personally. To do so would almost certainly result in the club being liquidated and its assets sold, although Sheffield Wednesday do not have many assets that would be worth much in what would essentially be a fire sale. Hillsborough is owned by Sheffield 3 Ltd., a Chansiri-controlled corporation, however it went into administration at the same time as the football club.

The entire objective of the administration process is that it is in the best interests of everyone concerned, including creditors, to rescue enterprises as going concerns. It is quite doubtful that Chansiri will receive any further funds as a result of the club’s liquidation.

Chansiri has a history of making unusual and self-serving claims like this. It’s been a year since he rejected a bid from an American group as “derisory,” and it was later revealed that he was holding out for the £100 million he thought the club was worth at the time.

Of course, the question of how much a business is “worth” is always open. However, at its most fundamental level, any business is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and the single proposal received since the club went into administration that met the threshold required to avoid the 15-point deduction was rejected.

It is already known that purchasing Sheffield Wednesday will be just the beginning of the costs for any new owner. Hillsborough requires considerable restoration, as does manager Henrik Pedersen’s squad.

If Sheffield Wednesday aren’t worth £30 million right now, it’s because Chansiri mishandled the club for years. That his intransigence may still prevent the club from receiving the much-needed fresh start may not be news to Sheffield Wednesday fans, but it is consistent with his previous conduct.